Punishable by Death
by FirenzeFuomo
Summary: "With her spine tall, her chin parallel with the ground, eyes lied straight ahead looking at nothing, she stood alone. She felt her feet sway, perceptive to only herself, and her body turned to lead. Strange, how silent a courtroom stocked with strangers could be. Even the air was stunned to silence."


"First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, for crimes against humanity, including the persecutions regarding insurmountable first degree murders of innocent civilians, for blatant disregard of precious assets formally known as collateral damage, for the reprehensible acts of war under mentally sound and intellectually capable persons fully able to understand that of a moral compass whom you obeyed,

You are convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, to be shot until declared deceased."

With her spine tall, her chin parallel with the ground, eyes lied straight ahead looking at nothing, she stood alone. She felt her feet sway, perceptive to only herself, and her body turned to lead. Strange, how silent a courtroom stocked with strangers could be. Even the air was stunned to silence.

She'd had a friend, once. An old, old friend, who had taken the shape of a sphere sort of thing, an orb perhaps, that was born at the first person she had killed, and it was the sort of friend that submitted to silence but had never disappeared, it hung waiting, waiting patiently and kindly for her to focus on other things, to protect more _important_ things, but it waited because it knew its time would come.

Her friend was here now, and it wasn't leaving this time. It was announced, _Riza Hawkeye you are guilty_ , to the country, and it was here for her.

Silence befell the people of the courtroom for one long moment before there was the unquestionable noise of something scraping, like a coat shifting suddenly against a bench, somewhere behind her.

Protocol of the convicted persons are as follows: listen to the court's verdict, say nothing, be silently escorted by Military Police to a containment cell without speaking or looking to anyone.

The military made her who she was; a killer, yes, but also a highly skilled and highly capable woman. The military gave her the tools to take itself down. She owed the military a great deal, ought not she obey protocol?

Yet she'd just been handed a time stamp on the rest of her life. She'd been presented a clock with a pre-set timer, and the chime of that bell was the shot of a gun.

Numb, she turned on her heel towards the left, where the MPs quietly awaited her, but a puppet inside her plucked the strings so she turned her head over her shoulder, her expressionless face then clear to the people filling the rows.

Their eyes met immediately, almost magnetically, like two spotlights turning perceptively to conjoin so to brighten their focus and darken anything else.

One hand was gripped against the top of the bench in front of him, and the other was leaning forearm down against it as though it was supporting him from falling to the floor. His face held the story that she hadn't yet processed, eyebrows pulled together in horror, lips parted open in paralyzation, eyes wide in devastation, he held the features of a man who would never again sleep.

She felt her blank facade crack at the look of him.

Hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her forward, impatient and angry that she hadn't done as ordered. Even as she was tugged forward, her eyes did not break with his until the hands whipped her around to two faceless soldiers and the pressure of binds suffocated the wrists pulled tight behind her back.

The minute piece of her that was awake saw the wooden floors beneath her blur as she was moved, and she felt her feet walking, but all she could hear was her guilt and all she could see were his eyes.

* * *

"Please," he implored, "let me see her." He was unable to stop himself from taking another step forward towards the guard, who eyed him warily. The man only shook his head.

"No, Colonel Mustang," he said with a shake. It only infuriated the colonel. "All war criminals are stripped of their fundamental incarceration rights once convicted. She is allowed to see no one, and no one is allowed to see her. The same goes for all guilty parties—"

"Listen to me," he glanced at the soldier's nameplate, "Carson," he emphasized, "I understand she was convicted—" He barely stopped himself from choking on the word. "But she isn't…she isn't…"

Isn't what? A criminal? A heathen to be stoned in the streets, and enemy of the nation?

Isn't a life to be wasted?

"I killed more than she, Officer Carson…" he said quietly, as if speaking too loudly would invite him to finally crumble. "The acts I commited were far more heinous…will you deny me my rights, too?

"As I recall, Colonel, you were not convicted as a war criminal."

"But _why_?!" he suddenly shouted, the seal once flawed now broken. Something scorching bubbled from within his belly, licking at his insides and toying with his heart rate, beating it and beating it until it raced so quickly his fingers grew prickly.

The image of himself, on trial and on display before the entire country, the entire courtroom, flashed before him. The warm smile, the glimmering yellow hair, that greeted him after the court announced the verdict. The palm, comfortable and familiar, that had optimistically touched the back of his shoulder.

" _Why not?!"_ he screamed. " _Because I was considered some kind of hero at the time? Because I held a reputation for ending the fucking war? How are we any different? How is she a murderer and I'm not?!"_ That which coursed through him was a cloth over his eyes, dark and blinding, his sight pouring out through his mouth. " _Why is she destined to die but I'm destined to live freely, tell me why that's right! TELL ME WHY THAT'S FAIR!"_

His fingers curled harshly around the collar that had found its way into his grasp. He tugged the guard closer.

"She was forced out of the academy, you pricks! She didn't make that choice! They thrust a gun into her hands, _her 19 year old hands_ , and was told to kill, she was ordered to be guilty! _Do you understand?!"_

"Colonel Mustang, back off!" the guard hissed sharply. He made no move to block the red seeing man, but his eyes challenged him all the same. It meant nothing to Mustang. He only jerked him closer, he'd already forgotten the man's name, but he could see the little muscles around his eyes narrow dangerously.

That which held dispute for him could not bother to compare to the provocation wrapped round Mustang like a noose. That which clogged his arteries, coagulating to deprive him of oxygen, came rushing to him despite his every desire to banish it from his thoughts; the image of her, standing up there all alone, the horror of hearing the headless voice deliver her sentence, of her body having no reaction whatsoever and his own threatening to tear itself out like clawed demons, that fucking falter in her eyes just before they pulled her away from him, knowing and thinking and imagining and practically _feeling_ her die although they were still only words — it poured out of him with rapid turbulence.

" _I was 23, I put those goddamn gloves on with every knowledge of what the fuck I was doing and I used alchemy you bastard! I used something meant to create to destroy and she's the one who has to die! You fucking,"_ the word spit out of him, " _reprehensible, backwards assholes are killing the wrong person!"_

"Back off, Colonel, now!" The man finally retaliated with a thrust of his heel into Mustang's shoulder but it may as well have been air.

" _You're killing the wrong person!"_ he screamed, his neck bursting, his eyes alight with fire, and he knew nothing would ever find warmth inside him again. " _YOU'RE KILLING THE WRONG FUCKING PERSON!"_

* * *

Back straight, chin tall, eyes blank, heart eerily still and the sky overcast with beckoning rain that hadn't yet fallen, she stood in dirt. A wall, known for decades around the rarely visited compound as The Bullet Catcher, stood erect 12 inches behind her. Dense trees of the misty forest surrounded them. The smell of moss drifted along with the stifled breeze.

Six rifles were held parallel with six uniformed legs. The ends of them rested on the soft dirt she, too, was atop. The Committee Man, dressed in a suit and holding a clipboard, leaned over and said something to the general. He wrote something on his paper. Still she only stared straight ahead, studying the spaces between the tree trunks, but she heard his pen scratch in the otherwise silent forest. The suited man turned and walked towards his civilian vehicle without a glance backwards.

" _Squad, present arms!"_

The general's voice was sharp, slicing through the air like a weapon. The rifles clapped against the forearms that thrust them upwards.

"Ready," he ordered. "Aim!"

Six barrels, their individual eyes bearing, looked down at her.

"Stripped of title, Riza Hawkeye, do you have any last comments or words to say before the order is given?"

The Committee Man's driver side door shut with a deep bang.

 _To those victims of whose lives I took, and in return dug my grave,_

 _I am so, so sorry._

"No."

The vehicle's engine rumbled awake. The dirt beneath it scrambled as the tires turned forwards. The sound rumbled and rumbled until it diminished with distance. It seemed as though the wait for her non-existence was as infinite as her imminent fate.

"May God meet you and descend final judgement. Fire!"

The shots rang out like the individual chords of an instrument being plucked simultaneously, the fire igniting the gunpowder and the little explosions that followed shortly afterwards popping into the air. The sound of each metal casing dinging against the cement wall; the soft plop each one made as they fell to the dirt. Ratatatatatatclingclingclingploploploploplop,

Riza jerked violently, every muscle tensing and her mind blanking with the sharp and aggressive sounds of the weapons emptying, and she experienced that which no one else alive could; to die.

She didn't fall. Perhaps she did, but she could not realize it, perhaps it had been swift and the lingering feeling of stagnation was what death was. Yet the muscles in her stomach trembled, and she thought it was strange that she should feel a physical body when that physical body had been eliminated.

The swift thought came to her that the first round of bullets indeed did not kill her, that they had missed her heart and had ripped into her limbs or torso, that she would feel a sudden agony and her throat constricted suddenly at the thought of hearing the sounds of the second round blasting her ears, tackling her to the ground as the first round was supposed to do, and she hated that they couldn't have simply killed her the first time.

The sounds of the blasts did not come, and she opened eyes she hadn't realized were clenched shut.

The rifles were no longer raised, and the soldiers had turned swiftly around and were walking backwards through the trees and toward the small dingy building beyond. Only the general had stayed behind, watching her carefully.

Her breath hitched and she could not breath, gravely lost. She felt her eyes widen and the muscles in her arms began to quake. Her chest felt as though it were collapsing. This must have been a mirage. She must be dead and her ghost had risen out of her body to watch.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," began the general quietly. He took several steps forward and she choked silently. "I am sorry to have done this to you, you must understand. But it had to be done this way. We needed to audibly perform this, for him to hear." His voice sounded so different than it had when he was commanding the squad to shoot her down.

Riza felt the quakes in her arms spill into the rest of her body and she said nothing. Her eyes felt irredeemably haunted. Comprehension still had yet to dawn.

"Hawkeye," he continued cautiously. "I am in contact with Major General Armstrong…I was assigned in Briggs with her. We made the decision to save your life."

Something burned behind Riza's eyes — her ears were not in tandem with her mind, for she still expected death to come for her at any moment. Should she not be dead? Was she not guaranteed to die on this day, at this moment? What was he saying?

"Lieutenant…you look incredibly white. Please, come with me."

She remained a statue. He considered her for a moment, then adjusted his footing and softened his features even moreso.

"Olivier thought I should request to be the general attending and signing off on your execution, and that I ought to recommend to the committee that I bring my team of sharpshooters with me. No one else wanted the job, of course…those men are Olivier's men and can be trusted." He continued speaking calmly, but with a sense of urgency. "I know you do not know me, but I am here to officiate your death and to also oversee your escape. We must carry on with the latter, now."

Riza felt something loosen inside her and a hot, betraying tear spilled down her cheek. It descended slowly. An incredibly quiet, strangled gasp escaped her throat as she opened her mouth.

"What is this?" she whispered.

"This is me getting you out of here, Lieutenant," he replied. "Please, come. Please. The committee expects a body quite soon, one covered by a sheet will suffice, but I need you in the back of a military truck before I can do that."

She swallowed hard and it felt like she could hardly breath at all. She took a step forward, and it felt like the first time she had ever walked in her life. She found herself standing in front of him, and he lightly took the back of her arm and lead her off to the left of the dingy old building, where the trees became even denser. Each step belonged to someone different than she.

As they rounded a large oak trunk, she saw the flap of a camouflaged tarp come into view. It sat atop a four wheeled Amestrian truck. Nothing seemed to flit through her mind except the sounds of the branches crunching beneath her. Her eyes, still wide and furled, seemed frozen, as if stuck in uncertainty for the remainder of time — and even that seemed to be a question.

"Stay inside there, Lieutenant…" implored the general as he gripped the sides of her shoulders. His touch was strange, a minute electrocution that zapped the inside of her skull, and she blinked at him as he continued to speak. "In ten minutes time, you will be declared dead to the Committee of War Crimes and the entire country of Amestris; under no circumstance can anyone see you while this truck is moving, do you understand?"

"General…" She realized she did not know his name. "General…?"

"Joseph Anza."

"General Anza…" Something akin to a quiet scoff escaped her throat. "I'm…I'm admittedly at a loss, right now…" Her voice had still never reached above a forced whisper. The puppeteer was the one speaking for her because it still seemed as though she shouldn't be. "I was sentenced to be shot…until deceased. I was held in an isolated prison for 24 hours, with hardly any food or water, and promised to be killed today. I completely expected to cease existing. I was given a promise to die."

"My dear, you speak as though you wish it…"

"No…no, it's not that…I'm only…" She looked around, her chin turning left then right. Trees surrounded them, trunks as tall as buildings and leaves shimmering against the setting sun's light. "I prepared myself for this like a person…something similar to how a person prepares themselves for a blood sample. If they don't feel the needle, don't experience the pinch of the small hole in their flesh, and they're told they're finished …it's quite…" Her voice drifted away as her eyes softened, studying the reddish color of the forest. She felt as though she were in a dream. She could not finish her thought.

"My dear…you have no idea how Olivier and I wrestled with this idea. We wanted to tell you, but there would have been no way, you understand," he said softly. She somehow noted how comforting he sounded, as if he were speaking to niece or a friend. The haze over her mind seemed to thin.

"Had we demanded to see you while incarcerated, it would have been deemed suspicious…no one, not a soul, not even a lawyer although you hadn't one, is allowed to see the sentenced. Now, Lieutenant, I insist you climb into the truck, please. All your questions will be answered."

He placed his palm on the back of her shoulder and guided her to the rear of the vehicle, where she forced herself to place a foot on the bumper and lift herself upwards. She slipped a hand between the camouflage curtains and she spread them to step inside, but then a hand touched her calf. She looked back.

The general was looking up at her, his eyes flicking between hers. She saw his face for the first time, truly saw it, and realized how kind he looked. General Anza leaned forward, just barely, and quietly said with fervert as though desperately attempting to convince her,

"You are alive. You still exist. Things will find a place again." Then he stepped back, turned, and walked to presumably join his small fleet of illegal soldiers. Riza hardly recognized which muscles were moving as she climbed into the back and gently lowered herself to sit on the empty bench within. She heard the metal jingle of keys, then the roar of an engine. She felt her bones vibrate as the vehicle shook with life. The truck began down its path, wherever or whichever that was. Her fingers curled tightly around the wood, hoping to feel a sliver slip into her skin so she could convince herself this was not fiction.

"Just in case anyone's watching during the duration of this ride," said a voice up front, "we're not gonna open the partition between the bed of the truck and the cab, alright?" It was a man's. Riza nodded, despite knowing he could not see her.

She became incredibly aware of her lungs, and the way they moved when she inhaled and the way they deflated when she exhaled. It felt strange. She wondered if the day was chilly or warm, for she could not discern.

"You got that, Lieutenant?"

She straightened her back and turned her head towards the curtain partition between she and the talking voice.

"Yes," she said.

"Good…me and Jorgie, we're gonna get you outta here, alright? We know what you did for the country, what's being called 'The Promise Day'. It's not right for them to try and kill you for that."

She turned her head away and looked at the crickety wooden planks that served as the floor. _It wasn't for that day that I was given that sentence_ , she wanted to correct him. She felt the thin scar diagonal across her throat twist as she looked down. She said nothing.

Suddenly her head jerked upwards, and any fog that was descended upon her fled as if a wind had pulled it away. She felt, and recognized, every single muscle and was painfully aware of the way they pulled on her. She felt the air, she felt it's briskness, and the notion that she'd been spared slapped her with absolute clarity as she drowned in her next thought. Her eyes grew wider than they had before, and it was as though she'd been hit by a truck.

"Someone needs to call Mustang," she said before realizing it. "Colonel Mustang, he—he needs to know, right now—"

"Well we gotta get you outta here, first, ma'am—"

"No, you don't understand, he needs to know before it's released that I'm dead. He can't think that I'm dead if I'm not. He needs to be informed, right now."

"Well phones don't travel in trucks, Lieutenant. I know you're feeling a lot of emotions right now, hell, I can't even fathom—"

" _He cannot think I am dead_." She felt her voice gain it's familiar edge again, a sharp contrast to what it had been since speaking with the general. Before that — since after the court hearing — she hadn't said a single word. That feeling of strength was alighting.

"The Major General told us Mustang would be one of the very few people to know about your predicament, Lieutenant, but we can't tell him until we get you to the safe house. We'll get to him soon, I promise, for now just—"

"Okay, just, just pull over at a corner and make the phone call for me, alright? Call his office at Central, give him some kind of warning—"

"Now, I need you to listen to me, Lieutenant Hawkeye," said the voice, still kind but discernibly more stern. "One: how would a military truck pulling up to phone booth look? Second: you know better than most people in this entire world how distrustful phone lines are, primarily when in regards to a military headquarters. Third: I sincerely doubt he's even in his office. I wouldn't be, if I were him, if a close subordinate was being executed. Who knows where he's at. Now those three things add up to a pretty disastrous formula, alright? I'm sorry, I know the two of you went through some shit together, but he's gonna have to think you're dead like the rest of the country for a little while longer."

Her head fell into her hands and she didn't feel the need to respond. He was right, she knew. The sensation where she felt the desperate need to cry but the absolute failure to physically do so crept upon her. She didn't wish to cry, of course, not now when things were so…so intensely confusing. Then again, tears could not shed if she did welcome it. Only the one had fallen and it had drained her since.

But she thought of him, and what the news would do to him.

Many things were uncertain with the two of them, uncertain in a familiar but strange way…but there was one thing she knew for fact. She cared dearly for him, and he did for her. Simply put, without any complication or question of obstacle, they cared deeply about each other's lives.

And he was about to be told that hers was over.

* * *

He thought Central Headquarters would be far enough away.

It was a Saturday. The room was empty, the lights were off, the blinds were closed. The small area of wood on his desk was wet from his glass, sweating from the iced whiskey that sat atop it.

He truly had thought the distance was suitable enough…cars rumbled about on the streets below, mumbling in mundane routine. There were the muted sounds of the flower vendor at the corner shop, bargaining with a customer as the business day neared its end. He drained the glass and he poured another.

He couldn't be home, today — it was too close. He knew it was, and he couldn't bear to step inside, despite the promise he would be alone in the small house. It was too close.

He couldn't be in a bar, no, God, no…there would be people in bars. There would be a man behind the counter, an apron tied around his waist, a dirty cloth in his hand, who'd ask him what he wanted to drink. Want; a satisfaction of a desire. As if ordering a drink would mean anything more to him than as a numbing device. As if he'd smile and say thanks, here, keep the cash, he'd take a sip and smile with pleasure and look at the liquid pleasantly because it tasted just right. There'd be a beer bellied man sitting at the end of the counter, chortling with his equally wasted friend about something benign and unequivocally unimportant, filling the space with a warm kind of cheer.

No. No, he couldn't be in a bar.

He needed to be absolutely alone, and he needed to be drinking.

That left here, this building, this room, this desk…far enough away, so he thought, and isolated to the point where he would fill it with no one else. He kept his eyes straight, down, up, or to the left. Never to the right. That's where her desk was.

He drained the glass. He poured another.

The whiskey seemed to be water because it did nothing, _nothing_ , to quell his mind.

He lifted the glass up to his mouth regardless, figuring he may as well drain the entire bottle, just as she had that one night so long ago, to see if it would do anything anyway.

Beneath the drunken layer of alcohol, something burned within him to run there. To run there, as fast and quick as his feet could manage, and save her. To burst through those ugly red trees and grab the shoulders of those men whose guns were pointed down at her, to throw them to the ground and grab her beautifully calloused hand and just run, and feel her skin and her heartbeat and preserve them for another day, month, year, lifetime longer, to think of nothing else except her life. To just save her. To save her.

But they would be fugitives, the two of them. Never could they return to Amestris.

The promotion he'd just received, to be implemented by the end of the year, along with its duties of rebuilding and restoring faith in Ishval, would be ripped away from him and given to someone else, someone who may not care or someone who could do more harm.

The dream they'd worked towards, of being at the top and saving the country, would go up in flame until it filtered into a pile of ash that would never again take form. Everything she had done, she had done for him, and for her country. Going to Ishval in the first place…she had done with the idea of something better in mind. She was sentenced to execution, for the country. Yet he would give all that up, to prevent this…

But she would never, ever forgive him. She considered her life part of the price to be paid in restoring the country, and to deny her that was denying her her purpose. She'd live a life she'd hate, a life chipped with guilt and regret, a life she'd resent, any headline that made its way to her eyes that outlined negativity in the country, negativity Mustang could have prevented if he hadn't saved her, would rip at her resolve and ultimately destroy her.

He collapsed his head into his hands, saturated with a buzz broiled with both alcohol and devastation. His purpose was to rebuild the country, for the betterment of thousands of lives. Why was it so, so, incredibly and painfully difficult to let one of those lives go if it meant the rest of them had a chance?

The thought of it turned his blood cold and he poured another glass, emptying it into his mouth in one quick gulp before he gave himself the chance to feel its bite.

And then he heard them…he heard them despite convincing himself that he wouldn't…he heard them regardless, ignorant, of the sure thought that he was far enough away…the rapidfire shots of midrange rifles in the far distance, the patter of weapons ticking off almost muted by trees and brick, and the glass dropped from his hand, hit the wooden desk, landed on it's side to roll over the edge and collide loudly with the ground,

He thought, he swore, he swore he was far enough away from that forest to hear it…he swore he was far enough away…

He fell out of his chair, collided with the rough carpet, and vomited.

* * *

Someone was playing a soft piano, something soft and melodious and trodden with melancholy. It could have been inside her head if she wasn't so sure it was real. She had a room, one with a bed and a little dresser. Ordinary, and out of place. A small painting hung on the northern wall. It looked like any other painting she'd ever seen.

The piano was different. She'd been at the small building for two days, and things seemed to have blurred together and yet had been so distinct and drawn out, all the same. She wondered where the piano was, and who was playing it. It must have been a few houses down.

Oliver had come only hours after she first arrived, two days prior.

"Hawkeye…" she had begun with a voice so unlike her own. It was almost sad, almost…almost weak. It did not sound like her. "Hawkeye, understand my deepest sympathy."

"Major General?" Hawkeye had asked, unsure, still thinned from just winning her life back.

"The committee…I know they're not a military organization, for obvious reasons…and yes, I understand that the Ishval Civil War Trials were necessary to get the country moving forward, but for the sentence they had given you…it's simply not right…"

"Major General Armstrong," Hawkeye had then countered tiredly. "I did commit heinous crimes. Is the sentence so surprising?"

"When they only gave that sentence to three other individuals, yes, it is. Many were given laborious prison sentences, or community acts of repentance like civil service or something of the like…but to be executed?" she had whispered harshly, her eyes narrowing in their familiar, impregnable way. "To be ended? Even Mustang was let off. I simply don't understand it." Her voice was razor thin. "It caught us all by surprise. You should have been cleared of guilt by the sacrifices you made on The Promise Day."

Riza was unsure of how she agreed, or did not, with Armstrong. She hadn't been sure for some time; part of her had been shocked by the sentence, and part of her hadn't been at all. Part of her, the part of her that had never left Ishval, almost desired the sentence. How else could she repent? She was one of few to be ordered to die because she was one of few to kill as many as she did. She was the only non-alchemist soldier to be ranked in terms of Ishvalan head counts — she was the only soldier to have breached the hundreds. All other uniformed individuals who were not alchemists, according to record, never spilled over 95. And she had. And not only that, she had breached something over three times that number. No one could compare to what she had done with a rifle.

Except a number of alchemists, that is. And they were all either given service sentences or freed from all guilt, for although they killed the most, it was due to their involvement that the war ended at all. Part of her agreed; part of her accepted that she deserved to be mandated to die.

Part of her wish she hadn't been rescued from the slaughter of the six rifles.

Then, part of her remembered the trauma of The Promise Day, and the whole of her knew to which extent she desperately wanted the country of Amestris to thrive. The whole of her understood her stake in it's future, and what she would give and would always give to see it surpass anything it had been before. She knew she wasn't a war criminal, capable of inhumane killing and pleasure in death. She wasn't an emotionless being born with receptors capable of numbing guilt or harm or humanity. Was she so alike those other two, the two who had been ruthless, who had been tortuous in those they killed, who had been insane by standard, destined to be executed like she was supposed to be? They had been cruel, they had been heartless; she had been young, and stupid, and lost, and so, so unfortunately talented with a gun.

She remembered their faces. Sometimes they blurred together, sometimes they were distinct, but they would visit her each day, each night. They never left her, never would, no matter who saved her from which sentencing; she was Guilt, it was unimportant of how she felt after she pulled the trigger, she surmised, it was the fact that she ever pulled it at all.

Conflicted, always conflicted and torn between two halves of her that would never amicably communicate, she let the subject drop from her mind. There would be no answer, and searching for it only proved to be something painful. Her fate seemed to be chosen, then, anyway. The piano chimed through the walls.

"Colonel Mustang," Riza had said shortly after visiting with Armstrong. "I need to call him."

"We can't call him, Hawkeye. You know that. Don't be foolish."

"Then tell me what needs to happen."

"He needs to come here."

"Then why hasn't he yet?"

"He doesn't want to."

"Sorry?"

"We've sent a notary. It had to be vague; I said I wanted to speak to him, and that his presence was of utmost importance. He…sent a letter back. He doesn't want to come."

"Well," Hawkeye had felt her heart thumping in her throat. She no longer cared about patience. "What did he say, exactly?"

"He said…" Olivier sighed deeply. She looked away from Hawkeye for a moment. "He said, 'Whatever it is, it is unimportant to me. Find someone else.'"

Silence fell over them. A thick silence, as though Olivier was truly hearing it for the first time just as Hawkeye was. To deny the call of a comrade, of an ally, was not he.

"He thinks a trusted friend of his is dead, Major General," Riza explained shakily. She forced herself not to think of his turmoil. "He needs to be aware before—"

"—before he loses his mind? Lieutenant Hawkeye, he's already lost it."

"If you do not tell him, I will. In person. I swear to God, I will leave this building."

"That sounds something like a threat, Lieutenant."

"Maybe it is." Speaking like this to a superior was foreign to her, and it almost tasted strange coming off her tongue, but frankly…she wasn't a lieutenant anymore. And things needed to be done, by Armstrong or by her, it would be done.

That, and nothing more in the world, though she couldn't admit it to Olivier or herself, was that she wished desperately to see his face. To feel his presence. To relish his proximity and simply stand in the same room as he, because if she could do that, she knew things would make sense. She knew things would seem plausible, and doable. Things would happen if she could just see him.

"And don't forget, Major General," she added. "I've been stripped of rank; I'm dead, remember?"

Olivier had regarded her for a moment, she eyes hard on hers, as if testing her stability. Riza saw the hardened woman again, the one she was used to when being around Olivier Armstrong. Riza did not waver, and neither did Oliver. Finally, the latter woman nodded once.

"I suppose so. So then, what, Hawkeye? What is it you recommend, since you're so hellbent on this particular hang-up?"

"Send your brother straight into Mustang's office, and have him relay these exact words;

Colonel Mustang, you must be downtrodden. Come to my place after work; I have a friend, her name is Elizabeth, and I think you two could be friends.'"

* * *

He burst through the doors as though they were made of the thinnest sort of paper, his mind a rage and his hands aflame. The wooden doors collided hard with the walls behind them.

"How fucking dare you, Olivier," he spat with a tongue of venom as he marched down the small hallway. He had never been in this building before; it was one made of cement, all the way down in the Western jurisdictions that he rarely visited. The walls were discoloured and the floor was tasteless. From the outside, with the unkempt vines and the trails of ants and beetles, it appeared as a squatter's house, stuck in the middle of Lichetown; the poor part of the West side.

"How _dare_ you fucking use that name to my face, you sick rubbery piece of shit." His feet clapped harshly against the cold floor. He didn't know where that bitch was, or where that damned brother of hers was either; he had come early. _'Come after work,_ ' that mudfuck had said to him. _'I have a friend named Elizabeth…'_

Just hearing those words come out of his stupid, enlarged, begotten mouth had severed Mustang's stomach in half. He had felt his blood turn cold. He had been frozen, stuck, staring up at Armstrong with increasingly shocked eyes, unable to say anything back. How could he have said that to him? How could he have done that? How could he fucking dare…?! _After what they'd been through together…?!_

Then the large, beefy man had exited his office, obviously pretending to not have noticed the bottles of whiskey on the ground, without saying another word. He'd left with a small nod of the head, a stupid, stupid, understanding and sympathetic look in his eye, and he had left.

Fuck you, Armstrong. Fuck you. Fuck you.

 _How about I come now, you insolent little bastard._

The little note the man had slipped on his desk was long since turned to ash. It had been the coordinates to where this crap building was, a very fitting metaphor to the way those insensitive and enraging siblings lived their maddening and extremely touchy lives, and Mustang would be damned if he didn't get a good punch in to each of their noses, despite knowing that one Armstrong after the other would bring him to the ground afterwards.

Who cares, anyway. Bring me to the ground. I'm there already.

" _Well get out here, you stupid fucks!"_ he yelled into the hallway. The echo bounced off the stone walls. The muscles around his chest and lungs trembled and he hardly cared that his hands were too. "You fucking wanted me here, well here I am! _Here I am, assholes! You got my fucking attention, congratulations! What the fuck do you want, huh?! What is it!"_

Rage broiled inside him like a stove left on; he couldn't stop himself. He looked around wildly, flinging open several omitting doors, unfazed by their loud bangs, but found nothing and no one. Either they had played a foolish, deadly prank on him, or he coming early had been a mistake. There was no one, no grave-wished Armstrong, in sight.

Something shifted behind him, he could hear it — like a foot scraping against the stained cement. He pivoted around, his face turned in fury, his fingernails bleeding into his palms in attempt to restrain himself from pulling on his gloves,

and he froze.

It was someone he recognized only in memory. She had bright yellow hair, like the midday sun - it was flowing freely around her shoulders. There were clothes on her that didn't quite seem to fit. They were off-colored and big, her shirt tucked loosely into the grey pants, and they looked like they'd been picked up at a secondhand store. Her skin was bright, almost illuminating, like that of a ghost;

She looked more beautiful than she ever had before, and her presence was more unwelcome than he could ever recall it being.

The rage dropped into his feet until it melted into the ground, into the plates of the Earth, into the magma, until it ceased to exist. He staggered backwards.

The image looked unsure, but even more determined…so like her. It took a step forward and he blinked three times in attempt to shake it.

"Colonel…" The voice was feathery and quiet.

His face remained shocked, but he forced it flat and emotionless. _Do not acknowledge._

"Colonel, I…I'm sorry, I know this…this is…is, is…"

She—it—was stuttering, lost for words. It had only ever happened to her a few times before. Hearing it again was like an anvil on his chest, was like the devil playing him the cruelest sort of song.

"…is alarming," it barely managed to finish. "You weren't expected for a few hours…Olivier was going to explain beforehand…"

His throat seemed so tight, the airflow seemed so thin. To hear her voice again like that…it was so real. He felt the hair on his arms rise with the sound of her, and that had only ever happened when she was al—

He couldn't even bare to think the word. It was so unnatural. She was always supposed be drawing breath…like the world was round, she was supposed to remain in his sight. And now that she wasn't breathing, and now that her image _haunted_ his sight, nothing seemed to be right anymore. The world could have been flat or round or shaped like a fucking fruit, it did not matter.

This wasn't like the other hallucinations he'd had. This one was solid, and even a little dirty. It had minute features that gave it a sense of realism — its hand twitched at its side nervously, its head tilted to the left in uncertainty. He felt the strange need to address it, that it would shock his brain into submission and he'd see the hallway empty as it was supposed to be, and he opened his mouth carefully. He took in a courageous breath.

"You are dead. You're not real."

Something flashed over the hallucinations face; shock, and total despondency. It quickly recovered and Mustang sighed and shook his head, forcing himself to look away. The mannerisms of it were too painful to watch, too painful to recognize, and it felt like it would truly kill him.

"Colonel, I'm…real. I'm alive." It took a heavy sigh. He continued regarding the floor. "The execution was faked." He heard shoes scrape against the cement with the procession of steps, and his brow drew together. "My death was never true."

The words sent daggers through him. It offended him, it impaled him, because of course it was. Of course it was true. He slowly forced his eyes up to meet its.

"I heard you die."

The hallucination stopped walking. It was presentably taken aback. He glanced at it — the sunlight, streaming through a small window behind it, intercut by the bodies of twisting vines and wooden panels, shimmied over the back of her shoulders. It was insane, to which depths his fucked up subconscious made her seem real, going so far as to give her three dimensions capable of interrupting sunlight. He looked away again, casting his eyes to the wall beside her. Dammit, beside _it_.

"What?" whispered the echo of its voice, lacing the emotion of confusion within it.

"I heard the shots," he answered, his eyes still on the wall. "The gunshots, in the forest, I heard them." He had to force the words out. _Stop encouraging this, Roy,_ he told himself.

"No," it said weakly. "No, I mean, the gunshots were real, yes, but they missed, on purpose… We—Olivier Armstrong—she made the decision to save my life, by employing a partner of hers and his team to follow through with the execution audibly and nothing more. They shoved me in a truck and sent me here."

He could not stop shaking his head, his eyes closing and his insides twisting. It was becoming too real, too much for him to bear. Even the thought of the _possibility_ that someone could have saved her was too much, because he knew it was not so, and he truly thought he was halfway to hell at just the notion.

She is dead.

There was a sudden electric shock that permeated from his cheek into the rest of his body and he felt himself light up. His eyes shot open and he was staring into the golden brown ones in front of him, and from the corner of his eye he saw her arm slightly raised beside his head. He felt the pressure of her soft palm on his cheek. It was sending tendrils of electricity through his entire body. He was gripped; he was held. He felt his spine stiffen and his body turn to stone.

"Colonel Mustang, I'm here. I'm not fake." Her voice was so near him. It sounded broken, and hurt. Something instinctual stirred in his belly: the natural need to comfort her. He watched the features in her face harden, just barely, and a sheen covered her eyes as though emotion had swept her. Her thumb twitched on his cheek, and _he could feel her skin…_

"Colonel Mustang, I'm real, I'm not a Lieutenant any longer, I'm just me, and I really…really, just desperately need you to hold me for a moment, because this entire time I've barely held on by a thread and I feel like I'm three seconds away from completely fucking losing it."

Only a moment passed by, and without a single thought of what he was doing, at the break in her voice and the fluttery pulse in her fingers, his arms lifted and wrapped around her, pulling her close, pulling her into him, and he felt her.

 _He felt her_. He felt her body, her presence, herself. There was matter between his chest and his forearms, and it was Riza Hawkeye. Her body against his sent a message to his brain telling him, screaming at him, that she was real. This was real. Nothing, not even an illusion concocted by his own mind, could feel like she herself could feel, for she was wholly original and unreplicable and the feeling in his body was in tandem with the spark of outer space.

He squeezed tight against her, pushing his head into her neck, and the spell was broken.

Riza Hawkeye was alive. Riza Hawkeye was alive. Riza Hawkeye was alive.

And in such a way that he had never felt before, so was he, and he let out a desperate and strangled kind of breath.


End file.
